Why Zombies Never Die

Below:

Next story in Science

Halloween is a popular time for zombie activity, but even when
the pumpkins are gone and the witch costumes are put away, the
zombies will keep on marching.

That's because the living dead are a year-round affair these
days, and not just in movies. Around the world, a growing number
of people are dressing up as zombies for parties, festivals,
walks and pub-crawls in every season.

To explain the undying boom in all things zombie, experts point
to the versatility of zombies as a metaphor. Compared to vampires
or werewolves, zombies can symbolize everything people are afraid
of and anything that seems to be tearing society apart. Over the
decades, the undead have addressed race relations, class wars,
diseases, mindless consumerism and more.

"Part of what I really like about zombies is that they don't
always represent the same thing," said Brendan Riley, a media
scholar at Columbia College Chicago. "They're a really flexible
storytelling tool for describing all sorts of different cultural
and societal problems."

First-generation zombies emerged from voodoo culture in Haiti
more than 100 years ago, argue some academics, including Nick
Pearce, a sociologist and anthropologist at the University in
Durham in the United Kingdom. Surrounded by a variety of merging
African cultures and religions, Haitians believed that sorcerers
could put curses on dead people, bringing them partially back to
life for use as slaves.

Zombie sightings were documented in Haiti, and although there are
possible medical and pharmacological explanations for what was
happening, plenty of Haitians were convinced that zombification
was indeed possible. No one was actually afraid of zombies
themselves, Pearce said. Instead, they were afraid of being
turned into zombies.

Not long after the United States began to occupy Haiti, a 1929
novel called The Magic Island introduced the concept of
zombies to Americans, and Hollywood immediately jumped on the
image. The first zombie film, called White Zombie, came
out in 1932.

At first, American zombie films echoed Haitian themes. The movies
took place in tropical settings. And there was always an evil
character that, much like a voodoo sorcerer, controlled the
zombies as they did terrible things.

Those earliest zombies, Riley said, were clearly a metaphor for
the fear that a minority of whites had of an uprising by poor
blacks, who made up the vast majority of Haiti. By the 1960s,
though, zombies started to address other concerns. With race
riots, the Vietnam War and protests going on, zombies could
represent fears that the world was being irrevocably ripped
apart.

Not all zombie aficionados agree that today's zombies emerged
from the Haitian versions.

"From a factual, anthropological, religious, or historic
standpoint, there is no connection between the voodoo zombie and
the modern zombie," said Matt Mogk, founder and head researcher
at the Zombie Research Society. "Academics who view the topic
from their narrow field of expertise often make the mistake of
combining the two."

Regardless of their true origins, the premier of "The Night of
the Living Dead" in 1968 marked a turning point for zombies. Not
only was the cult film subversively critical of government, race
and societal norms, it took zombies out of their usual setting.
Instead of the tropics, the ghoulish characters were now walking
around central Pennsylvania.

Even more significant, the zombies were no longer being
controlled by an evil leader, said Pearce, who will be giving a
talk on Wednesday about what zombies can reveal about society at
the Economic and Social Research Council's Festival of Social
Science.

In a succession of horror films, zombies evolved into scary
figures independent of a larger power. So today, we may still
fear becoming a modern form of mindless zombie, glued to our
smart phones as we walk through shopping malls. But we are also
afraid of what other zombies will do to us.

"Today, the idea is not that we are being controlled by a menace,
but that everyone everywhere is a mindless zombie, and there is
no one target to actually blame anymore," Pearce said. "Maybe
zombies should occupy Wall Street."

Despite their gruesome looks and frightening symbolism, zombies
have also become a form of fun. More than 6,400 people "like" the
Zombie Pub Crawl Facebook page, which organizes thousands of
people in a drinking, dancing event through the streets of
Minneapolis for one night each October. The event, which is the
largest out of a list of dozens like it around the world, has
grown exponentially since 150 people showed up for the first one
in 2005.

By dressing up and acting like zombies together in events like
these, people may gain strength as they acknowledge their
powerlessness, Pearce said. Or, as Mogk argued, they might just
enjoy belonging to a group that doesn't reject anyone.

"At zombies walks, you see University professors walking next to
young families with kids walking next to a tattooed punk rocker
with a mohawk who they would usually cross the street to avoid,"
Mogk said. "Zombies are your friends in low places. Everybody is
welcome to join their club."